Fippy Darkpaw to go live 2/15Follow

Just linking the official announcement by Piestro here:

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=173099


If you don't feel like clicking, here is a recap:

What will be the name of the Time Locked Progression Server?

* The Time Locked Progression Server will be named Fippy Darkpaw, as chosen by the community.

When will the Time Locked Progression Server open?

* Currently we are targeting Tuesday February 15, 2011 for the opening of Fippy Darkpaw.

What rule set will the Time Locked Progression Server use?

* The Time The Time Locked Progression Server will use the normal PvE rule set.

What sort of items and content will and will not be available at launch on Fippy?

* For the Fippy Darkpaw Server we have done our absolute best to remove items which would give an inappropriate or undue advantage such as Defiant Armor or certain tradeskill related items. Generally the items that you will find should be items that came with the expansion currently available or were unlocked during that expansion. Augments created specifically for progression servers will be available.

Will there be Hotzones or Hotzone drops??

* Hotzones and Hotzone items will not be available on Fippy at release


How about Marketplace items, will Mounts be available?

* In addition to restrictions on items initially available within the game, Marketplace, Loyalty, and Claim items have been similarly addressed. If an item or buff offers stats, it will probably not be offered from any of those methods until a later date. Mounts will not be available until Legacy of Ykesha is unlocked or later, depending on the mount.

How will tradeskills work on Fippy Darkpaw?

* We have made efforts to limit tradeskills to the expansion when the recipe actually came out. Potion making and jewelry making have had the old recipes enabled, and these will stay this way until the Prophecy of Ro expansion is unlocked. Similarly the new poisons will not be activated until around Underfoot. The exception is spell research where we will not reverse it to the older method. Instead, we have limited recipes for the appropriate expansion and made ingredients for research available in more zones..

How will progression work on Fippy Darkpaw?

* As with the previous progression servers, players will need to defeat certain challenges to unlock newer expansions. Once these challenges have been defeated there will be a grace period where the server will stay in the current expansion. After the grace period, players will be able to vote through an in game poll to unlock the next expansion. The voting period will be one week.

Initially the grace period will be 90 days before voting will start for Kunark, then 60 days for each expansion after that. At some point we will even have a vote to see if players wish to change that grace period.

If the majority of players vote to unlock the next expansion, the next expansion will unlock at the end of the poll. If the majority of players voted to stay with the current expansion, then there will be a one week grace period before another poll will be posted. This will happen until a majority players vote to unlock the next expansion.

Phoenix? Risen from Ashes?

There's just no excuse not to get the word out in as many places as possible. SOE has gone further than I would have expected in putting together the ruleset for this server. It's going to be a blast!

If anyone is interested there is a site & forum for the new server here:

http://www.fippydarkpaw.com/

Gryphon to Orc 1!!!!

I won't tell anyone :P

Just updating this with new info from SOE Dev SKlug:

"OOC regen will be disabled until the expansion it was added (TSS).

Currently we don't plan to re-enable items left on corpses. We may put this up for a vote some time after the server launches though."

So no naked corpse runs, but downtime like 1999. They are really putting in an amazing amount of work on this progression server!

Actually, we're the ones calling "classic". SOE is calling it "progression". But for fans of classic EQ, it's as close as it gets. Also, I have no idea how much work they are actually doing - but it's more than nothing and that about all the faith I had in SOE before this announcement. They have a unique ability to take something that shines like gold and turn it into mud. I've never seen a company make consistently poor decisions year after year like SOE.

So yeah, from my perspective, I think this is amazing.

I cant wait for the progression to come live. Since I missed out on the combine (retired for a bit and came back after 4 expantions were open was not the same) I have been waiting for this to come along. As for how it will compair to the real EQ back in the day we will see. But there are a few things that will not be the same. There will not be any naked corpse runs, you will respawn with your equipment but have to run back for your corpse to res and to rot your corpse. Spell lines will be different. Spells like the wizzy/druid evac which was not available until luclin will be there when you hit the lvl. There will be a marketplace but the items you can but on the server will be different. Like you wont be able to buy potions/mounts and equipment from what I have read. The newer things like our current looting, buff timers and the coin systems will be in place.

eh who cares if your man boobs aren't swaying in the wind as you go and get your dead body. Im flippn psyched they're at least trying to go back as basic as possible with revamped zones and start out from scratch.

This is a rare opportunity. The opportunity that most older mmo players look back and sigh on. How much fun they had when they're favorite mmo came out and was new. With real people still running around, grouping, dieing, bsing in chat. Right before the game was downgraded to crap with pathetic mobs, content, and a joke of a challenge level.

Can't wait to make a new character and play the game after all these years.

I would imagine there would have to be boats, otherwise you would have to wait until Luclin to travel between continents...or swim. Damn I remember falling of the boat and have the hellacious swim.

They dont "have" to have boats, Maswov. They could have a transporter character you hail to be teleported to where the boat used to go.

That wouldn't be "classic", of course, but it would solve the problem of fixing the boats.

Pimok, the "return to home button" also isn't classic. Sure, it's very convenient but the original game was not convenient, by any means LOL. I understand that they're calling this a "progression" server, not a classic server. But if there was no intent to be classic as well, then why roll anything back? Leave in mercs, defiant armor, OOC regen, no spellbook for medding, graft on PoK (so you can buy your merc, and for easy porting between zones) and make it easy and convenient for everyone!

I enjoyed the naked corpse runs, and I was a melee who was generally bound 3 zones away. It was a challenge. But the point of the death penalty was the exp loss, not the naked run (I can't think of a time I died *again* on the run through oasis on my way to Guk...). The penalty made you work so hard to avoid death and that to me was the point - it mattered. It doesn't matter when you lose 3gold in repair costs in "modern games".

And mind you, I know you aren't resubbing anyway, but bards were broken with every patch. This should be the same really... I can't imagine the 3 devs who still work for SOE on EQ1 not breaking bards constantly with this coding 'nightmare'.

Oh yeah, i forgot about the transporters. I vaguely remember hunting at an island that a boat didn't stop at, had to jump off and swim along the route.

I'd say it was both. Part of the risk of adventuring in LGuk or Sebilis (Kunark, I know) or Befallen (with its locked door) or even the lower levels of Runnyeye, which was an insane maze if you didn't know it, was the "How are we going to get our corpses back if we die?" factor. And forget zones like Fear with their epic tales of guild after guild trying to assist their server-mates with a rescue and retrieval mission.

I went through many deaths where I had to eat the xp loss. I never stopped playing until I knew my corpse was secure after a death. Can't get more xp without your sword.

Edited, Feb 6th 2011 1:16pm by Jophiel

I'll admit I swore off SoE over a year ago for a laundry list of offences (some possibly even valid).

But this is like the ex-girlfriend coming back to you that had some thing she was always promising to do or be... but never could get it together --and she's gone and done it, shown up at your door tapping her foot and saying "welllll?"



I'm think I'm going to have to give Fippy a try for a month. (Let her back in the house to continue the metaphor)

It's worth my 15 bucks just to say (with my resub $) this is the kind of thing lots of us wanted for a while.

Fair enough. I'm still letting her in.

Rated you up for making me laugh and totally think of a RL ex.